Abbas Says Talks With Hamas On Unity Government Falter

By PHILIP SHENON and GREG MYRE; Philip Shenon reported from Ramallah, and Greg Myre from Jerusalem.

Published: October 5, 2006

The Palestinian Authority president, Mahmoud Abbas, said Wednesday that talks with the radical Islamic group Hamas on a unity government had ground to a halt and warned Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice that the West Bank and Gaza could face the possibility of civil war.

Mr. Abbas's Fatah party and Hamas announced a tentative power-sharing agreement on Sept. 11, but since then talks have broken off, prompting outbreaks of violence. On Sunday and Monday, factional violence left 10 people dead and more than 100 injured in the Palestinian territories, which have been cut off from Western aid and their own tax revenues since Hamas gained control of the government in legislative elections in January. On Wednesday, masked gunmen killed a local Hamas leader near the West Bank town of Qalqiliya.

''There is no dialogue,'' Mr. Abbas said at a news conference with Ms. Rice. Unless Hamas and Fatah agree on a unity government, he said, ''We will have fewer options and we will also face the risk of civil war. That is something that we need to avoid by all means possible.''

Mr. Abbas hinted that he might invoke his presidential powers to dismiss the Hamas-dominated cabinet and appoint an emergency government. Hamas has rejected demands that it renounce violence and accept previous agreements between Israel and the Palestinians. ''The dialogue cannot be endless,'' he said. ''I will use my constitutional powers at the appropriate time.''

Ms. Rice's trip through the Middle East this week -- first to Saudi Arabia, then Cairo and now Israel and the West Bank -- has focused largely on trying to bolster Mr. Abbas.

Aides said the most important support she had offered Mr. Abbas was a grant of up to $9 million for a $26 million plan to bolster the Palestinian presidential guard, a security force that answers to Mr. Abbas, not to the Hamas government, and to improve border crossing stations used by Palestinians to move their goods from Gaza. A senior State Department official traveling with Ms. Rice said the project was likely to be announced this week.

Ms. Rice said the Bush administration was eager to help Mr. Abbas establish a government that would work with the United States on ''a two-state solution, a solution in which a democratic Palestine and a democratic Israel can live side by side.''

But while Ms. Rice did not acknowledge it directly, officials at the State Department concede the United States has relatively few options available in assisting Mr. Abbas, because Washington classifies Hamas as a terrorist group and refuses to deal with it. The Palestinian prime minister, Ismail Haniya, and most government ministers are members of Hamas.

''Obviously we would like to be able to do more, and I have been discussing ways with the president that we might be able to better address the great needs of the Palestinian people'' and to end the ''kind of daily humiliations that we know have been associated with the occupation,'' she said.

Ms. Rice, who was scheduled to have dinner with Prime Minister Ehud Olmert in Jerusalem, said she would press Israel to open border stations, through which Palestinians must also pass to get to jobs in Israel, ''longer and more frequently.''

No Palestinian faction claimed responsibility for the killing of the local Hamas leader, Muhammad Oudeh. The Israeli military said it was not involved. On Tuesday, Al Aksa Martyrs Brigades, an armed group linked to Fatah, threatened to kill a trio of more senior Hamas leaders.